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Emergency Broadcast

"Pixie Cram's film stages a hypothetical nuclear fallout, eerily bringing antique military equipment, uniforms and other objects to life with stop-motion in a way that chillingly evokes the fragile state of current global politics." -- Christopher Rohde, Director, Mirror Mountain Film Festival

  • Pixie Cram
    Director
    Joan
  • Tina Le Moine
    Animators
  • Pixie Cram
    Animators
  • Kevin Komaranski
    Sound
  • Pixie Cram
    Cinematography
  • Pixie Cram
    Editing
  • Project Type:
    Animation, Short
  • Runtime:
    6 minutes 59 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    July 20, 2017
  • Country of Origin:
    Canada
  • Country of Filming:
    Canada
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital stills
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
  • International Short Film Festival Interfilm Berlin
    Berlin
    Germany
    November 22, 2018
    Berlin
    In Competition
  • Ottawa International Animation Festival
    Ottawa
    Canada
    September 26, 2018
  • Animafest Cyprus
    Salamiou
    Cyprus
    July 19, 2018
    Mediterranean
    In Competition
  • Filmfest Dresden
    Dresden
    Germany
    April 18, 2018
    European
  • Planet in Focus
    Toronto
    Canada
    October 25, 2018
    Toronto Premiere
  • Dawson City Film Festival
    Dawson
    Canada
    April 1, 2018
    Western Canada
  • Currents New Media Festival
    Santa Fe, New Mexico
    United States
    June 8, 2018
    New Mexico
  • Mirror Mountain Film Festival
    Ottawa
    Canada
    December 2, 2017
    World Premiere
    Nominated for Best Local Film
  • Echo Park Film Centre
    Los Angeles
    United States
    May 31, 2018
    US Premiere
Director Biography - Pixie Cram

Pixie Cram lives and works in the Ottawa-Gatineau region. She creates fiction and stop-animation on themes of nature & technology, and war. Her films have screened at festivals across North America and have aired on CBC TV. Recent commissions include a video portrait of Philip Monk, recipient of a Governor General’s Award for Visual and Media Arts, and a hand-processed film for the 10th anniversary of the Toronto 8fest. Pixie was the 2017 artist-in-residence at the Diefenbunker: Canada’s Cold War Museum. She is co-founder of the Windows Collective, a group devoted to the creation and exhibition of experimental works using film. In 2015, the Collective took their installations on a cross-Canada tour exhibiting from North Bay to Victoria. On top of her own art practice, she works as a freelance director, cinematographer and editor.

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Director Statement

Emergency Broadcast was created while I was artist-in-residence at the Diefenbunker: Canada's Cold War Museum. Growing up in Ottawa, I always loved the eeriness of the bunker and dreamed of making a film there.

Built at the height of the Cold War to withstand a five-megaton nuclear assault, the Diefenbunker is a massive underground, four-storey, 100,000-square-foot fortress designed and constructed entirely in secrecy in 1959. Decommissioned in 1994, this extraordinary relic of another time has found new life as a museum, events venue, and exhibition and performance space.

When I saw the NFB short, “If You Love this Planet” as a child, it had a lasting impact on me. In it, Dr. Helen Caldicott explains the realities of nuclear fallout amidst images of the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As an adult returning to view it, I realized the effectiveness of film in conveying the horrors of nuclear war.

Inspiration for this project has come from different sources. The object animation of Jan Svankmajer is a huge inspiration to me. The short story by Ray Bradbury, “There Will Come Soft Rains” takes place in an empty house of the future where robots continue to do the chores. We gradually learn that the inhabitants have been burned into silhouettes from a nuclear bomb.